The Sunday morning news. [volume] (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1886-1891, 1887-06-19
STEALING As 4 DISEASE.
Several Remarkable Instances of KEEP
tOmania.

Kleptomania is usually exhibited by per-
sons who have no motive to steal, and is
frequently satisfied by purloining articles
of no value. baronet of large fortune
stole, while on the Continent, pieces of
old iron and of broken crockery, and in
such quantities that tons of these collec-
tons were presented to the custom house
officers. In the second volume of the
Medical Critic, the case of a female is de-
tailed who could not resist the impulse of
appropriating everything within her reach.
In searching this woman on one occasion
there were found Is bags upon her person.
in which there were 1872 articles, mostly
worthless, viz, 104 bits of paper, 50 sew
ing-needles, Is old gloves, IL moulds for
wax leaves, 10 buttons, go feathers, par
GELS of dried fish, 135 bits of ribbons,
bottles. 81 lozsnges, and variety of other
articles, the refuse of the place, to which
she had at various times taken fancy
Another case reported by high medical
authority is that of q rich but eccentric
gentleman living in an old manor-house in
Lincolnshire, England. He was a good
business man, and managed his estate
with care and prudence, auditing his
stewards yearly accounts with the skill
of an expert His neighbors were all
kindly disposed toward him. and he was
charitably disposed toward the poor
Even the servants, who saw him every
day although they confessed that he was
Certainly very peculiar at times" never
once dreamed of Impuguing his intellect
He was insane in one direction only, and
one might have passed a lifetime with
him without discovering it. He would be
seized by a sudden determination to
travel, and on such occasions he would
travel in state, with retinue of servants
After fortnight's or perhaps a months
absence, he would return home. Invari-
ably, on the next morning of the next day
after his return, towels, which had been
taken from an open portmanteau, were
found scattered about the room. After
breakfast, his custom was to retire to the
library and write the addresses of all the
hotel-keepers at whose, houses he had
slept during his absence on so many slips
of writing paper, with directions to his
servants to inclose to each address the
namber of towels specified upon each
piece of paper, and to copy such other
writing as they might find there, and send
this in letter, With the towels, to the ho-
tei-keeper. This gentleman was one of
the unhappy races of kleptomani cs,
whose particular mania impelled him to
purloin towels. He subsequently gave to
a friend a history of his case, and said he
was goaded to these jourDeyings and pill
ferings by an irresistible impulse, which
he insisted was the result of demoniacal
possession. He was never impelled, how
ever, second time on the same journey:
so that, while no hotel-keeper would be
likely to suspect, during his visit, gentle
man of his rank and style as one who
would steal his towels, it never transplred
publicly, so far as is known, that he was a
thief, although his own consciousness of
the fact embittered his existence
Sometimes, in the case of this mono
mania, there exists in the mind of the suf-
ferer the delusion that what he steals is his
own property, or has been stolen from him,
and that he merely reclaims his own.
Sometimes he imagines that God orders
him to steal. The case is recorded of
Scotch clergyman, distinguished for his
learning, piety and charity; he stole Bibles
with a special view to the glorylof God by
the propagation of the Gospel. His manse
vas little missionary society of stolen
Bibles, and he was as much in earnest in
the conversion of souls by the contraband
process as the most enthusiastic foreign
missionary could be in his calling. lie was
at last detected IN wholesale Bible stealing
ganized wide missionary district, and left
Bible or a Testament at every cottage
where it was needed along the route The
most touching fact in the story is that he
was arrested while on his knees by the bed
81 lie of dying old man with stolen Bible
lying wide open before him on the bed
"What made you steal the Bibles. Mr..
Nh" asked the sheriff, with pious hor
ror upon his face. ''God made me steal
them, good man" was the reply; ssHe was
weary OF seeing his poor people perish of
Gospel hunger because the rich Bible Soci-
ETY. could not afford to feed them without
the baubees, and so God set me to steal for
them and save them" He could not be
persuaded that he had done wrong. The
delusion of the clergyman, who was very
poor man, naturally suggested insanity.
But he was perfectly sane upon all other
points, and it is doubt ful whether he would
have received the benefit of his malady-
whether, indeed, it would have been admit
ted as malady at all--if learned and
philosophical physician in neighboring
town had not positively sworn that he was
the ''victim OF moral mania"
There Is this popularity sometimes in
the case of kleptomaniaes, that their pur-
Joining IS confined to single articles. The
case is reported of lady who could not
resist the temptation to steal silk stock
in9s. Another lady would steal gloves
whenever the opportunity was afforded
A boy was arrested some months since in
Brooklyn for stealing slippers from tss
feet of ladies whhe walking 10 the street
His friends came forward aud testified
that he had been in the habit of stealing
slippers, and was never known to have
stolen anything else, all his life. A letter
carrier in Harlem, New York, was detected
in abstracting letters and concealing them
under rock, which he had practiced for
more than year. They were most care
fully boarded in his place of concealment,
and were found unopened 1t was proven
in his ease, we believe, that he had
mania for staa1ino lattars without apv an